Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response Update
Stella Creasy Excerpts(5 days, 17 hours ago)
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Darren Jones
It is not for the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister to speak about whipping arrangements at the Dispatch Box. I will leave that to the Chief Whip and the usual channels. The hon. Lady asked me two questions about reform to the other place, in particular the removal of peerages. I can confirm that legislation will be introduced shortly to bring forward the proposals that I have talked about at the Dispatch Box. She asked me further questions about redactions policy; I refer to my previous answer on that question.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The pain of the Epstein victims sits heavy with all of us in this House because we expect the highest standards of all of us. The challenge with this incident is that it involves a convoluted process that raises difficult questions about Government vetting and appointments. Given that, can my right hon. Friend tell us when he expects the Adrian Fulford review, which is to identify whether any other cases of concern have come to light about how appointments have been made, to be completed?
Darren Jones
My hon. Friend is exactly right to raise that question. The terms of reference have been confirmed with Adrian Fulford. That work has been started, and I expect it to complete in three to four weeks’ time.
Antisemitic Attacks
Stella Creasy Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Dan Jarvis
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his point and the way in which he made it, not least because it gives me an opportunity to say that while we are primarily talking about London, I have concerns about these kind of activities right around the country. To answer his question directly, yes, it is always my default instinct to work closely with colleagues in the Scottish Government, and I give him an assurance that that is what we will do.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Walthamstow stands shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community in this country in standing up to these people trying to divide our nation. We recognise the pain and fear in our local community, and are shocked to discover that some of those who have been charged with offences come from our local community. We also understand this pain at first hand, because in February 2025, attacks were organised online in the same fashion against our local mosques. They were reputed to be associated with Russian Telegram channels. It is right that we are hearing calls for proscription, but this is a relatively new form of terrorist association; teenagers and young people from our communities are being recruited online to conduct these offences in our communities. What more can we do to disrupt this recruitment by hostile states?
Dan Jarvis
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I can give her an absolute assurance of the seriousness with which operational partners, including the National Crime Agency, the intelligence services, the Metropolitan police and others, take these threats. It is the job of Government to make sure that those partners have the necessary resources to conduct this work. She is right to raise concerns about activity online, but I can assure her that we take this very seriously, and are working at pace to ensure that anyone conducting this kind of activity is brought to justice.
Security Vetting
Stella Creasy Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister is being candid about some of the challenges in this process. I am sure that he will share the frustration felt across the House as revelations keep coming and this matter keeps coming back to Parliament. He says that he has acted to prevent any further challenges in the vetting system for the Government in respect of senior appointments. Can he therefore give all our constituents, and the House, the reassurance that he has no further sense that there will be any challenges to any other senior appointments through the vetting process that this Government have made?
The Prime Minister
That is precisely why I have asked for a review of the security vetting to be carried out. I have no reason to believe that to be the case, but I want to be assured about the security vetting process, and that is why I have asked Sir Adrian Fulford to look at it, so that he can give me that further reassurance. I will then, of course, pass that on to the House.
Middle East
Stella Creasy Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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The Prime Minister
As the hon. Lady probably knows, we have been supporting measures in the UN over the last two weeks, particularly some of those that were put forward by our Gulf allies, and I had the opportunity to discuss those last week in the Gulf. We will continue to work with them and others on building the necessary coalition to do all that we can to get the strait open.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Prime Minister’s tough stance in response to President Trump’s demands to get involved in this conflict, and his commitment that Lebanon must be part of the ceasefire. Our constituents need us to give them hope that they will not have to continue to live in a world that is driven by the uncertainty of when the White House takes to Truth Social. We can do things to de-escalate conflict, and one of those things is to support the two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, which the Prime Minister knows is at the heart of much uncertainty in the middle east. Given that the conduct of settlers on the west bank directly undermines the possibility of peace and the possibility of a Palestinian state, will he commit to including their conduct in his conversations about the ceasefire and how we can give hope to people in the middle east and peace to people around the world?
The Prime Minister
I reiterate to my hon. Friend and the House our support for the two-state solution, which is the only way to achieve a viable long-term peace in the region. Of course, the settler violence is a threat to that. It is wrong in principle, and we will continue to bear down on it.
EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK
Stella Creasy Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I never inhaled: I always opposed Brexit, and I continue to fight for a closer relationship with Europe. I also recognise that the way the previous Government left the European Union was the hardest of Brexits. They compounded the damage that walking out of the room did to this country, and we see that in our constituencies every single day. I do not believe that anybody voted for 1.8 million fewer jobs to be created in our economy, or for 16,000 businesses to give up on trading with Europe because the basic consequence of Brexit was paperwork. I do not believe that anybody in this country really wanted those outcomes.
Ms Creasy
I apologise, but I am aware of the time available. I also recognise that 2016 was over a decade ago. One of the challenges in this nation is that we have always acted as if the hard part about our relationship with Europe was us deciding what we wanted to happen, and the easy part was going and telling our European counterparts what we wanted to do. In a decade, President Trump has been elected twice, covid has happened, the #MeToo movement occurred and TikTok was invented—not to mention the antics of President Putin. If we are going to get this right then, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) is right to argue, we need to get closer to Europe, but, in what we ask now, we have to show them the respect of recognising the damage we did in walking out of the door.
First and foremost, we need a salvage operation for British businesses, jobs, climate and people. That requires looking at the deal that has been done with Switzerland. We must get closer to the single market, because the customs union is not our European counterparts and European freedom of movement. There is so much more that we can do but, first, let us start by respecting those people we disavowed.
Lord Mandelson
Stella Creasy Excerpts(2 months, 4 weeks ago)
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John Lamont
My right hon. Friend is right. The Prime Minister’s position, particularly after his remarks during Prime Minister’s questions earlier, raises serious questions about what he knew and when, and why on earth he made the appointment.
I have been doing this job as a Member of Parliament since 2017, and previously I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament for 10 years, so it is almost 20 years. Throughout that time, I have been aware of the rumours and speculation about Mandelson. Indeed, he was sacked from the Cabinet on two occasions for misconduct, and throughout his political life question marks have been raised about his credibility, his conduct and his scruples. Why was Peter Mandelson able to get away with distributing sensitive privileged information while in office? The questions over Peter Mandelson’s character, and his loyalty to this country, have to be answered.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Like the hon. Gentleman, I have been a Member of this place for longer than I care to remember, and throughout that time I have seen powerful men go unchallenged and cause havoc in our country as a result. He and I will want to change that for good, because this goes well beyond any partisan concern. Does he agree that it is therefore time to revisit the role of this House in scrutinising appointments, and particularly the capacity of Select Committees to object? Too many people have known for too long that a number of controversial characters are not fit for public office. It is time to bring the disinfectant of democracy back into that process—does the hon. Gentleman agree?
John Lamont
The obvious question that stems from the hon. Lady’s point is why on earth the Prime Minister made that appointment when there was so much information about the toxic nature of Peter Mandelson. What on earth was the Prime Minister doing? The Secretary of State for Business and Trade, a Cabinet member, was doing the rounds saying that it was “worth the risk”, so clearly, even in the higher echelons of the Cabinet—not least the Prime Minister—there were concerns about this appointment, yet nobody did anything about it. This individual, who had this association with a predator and grooming-gang master and was subsequently caught sharing sensitive information with him, should never have been anywhere near the important office of our ambassador to the United States.
There are so many questions that the Government need to answer, but there are crucial questions that the Prime Minister has to answer. For me, the Prime Minister’s conduct in this matter is completely unforgivable.
Dr Arthur
At lunchtime, during Prime Minister’s Question Time, we heard at length from the Prime Minister that we will release this information, so that people have a chance to look at it. We can speculate, but today’s debate is about releasing the information into the public domain, so that people can be reassured that the right decision has been made, and if it has not, we can question it.
Ms Creasy
My hon. Friend was here when I said that we should not only deal with this situation—I am with those who were not happy about the original amendment —but also think about what we can change fundamentally. This is not the first time we have seen controversial people appointed to positions. Does my hon. Friend, as a relatively new Member, share my interest in learning from other jurisdictions around the world? For example, there could be pre-appointment hearings before Select Committees, which could object to shortlists. Could we not toughen up our role as eyes and ears looking out for what good democracy practice looks like?
Dr Arthur
The vetting procedure, as described by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, seemed so insubstantial. My hon. Friend is right: we have to do much better. I am recruiting a community engagement officer, and it struck me that we exercised more rigour in checking the background of that person, although I accept that I may not have understood the procedure that was described.
It is right that we have focused on Mandelson’s links with Epstein, but if Mandelson had not been mentioned in the data that was released at the weekend, perhaps we would have been speaking about Andrew Windsor and Sarah Ferguson today. They are, perhaps, the winners in that regard.
Earlier, I was guilty of saying that the arguments that the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) presented showed that he had misread the room, but he was right in one respect. He was right to say that Mandelson was a traitor—and I hope that he meant not just a traitor to the United Kingdom, but a traitor to the survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse—and, in fact, survivors of sexual abuse everywhere.
I think that the residents of Edinburgh South West, and everyone else, expect us to work together on this, and to reach consensus, and hopefully we can. I am still not sure whether the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National party and the Greens are on board, but I think we are moving much closer to one another. [Interruption.] My apologies. It seemed that they wanted to back the original Humble Address, rather than agreeing to the involvement of the ISC in the process; that was my understanding.
UK-EU Common Understanding Negotiations
Stella Creasy Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Nick Thomas-Symonds
First, I cannot better the first word of the hon. Lady’s contribution. As we move forward, we will make the kinds of assessments that she talks about, and she is absolutely right to say that the agreement will make a significant contribution to our workforce and, indeed, to our economy. Despite the chuntering from Conservative Members, this is not only about money; it is also about the fact that young people’s lives, and indeed adult learners’ lives, are going to be enriched in so many ways. This is something we should celebrate across the House.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the Minister on doing what many of us have felt has been needed in the relationship between the European Union and the UK: what therapists call “active listening”. He is actually listening to our neighbours, finding out what they are interested in and where we can do a deal, and recognising that those in a relationship who keep making random demands—whether they are about a customs union, rejoining the EU or fish—fail to recognise the importance of communication to negotiation. I note that the original wreckers of this relationship have not turned up today to explain to Britain’s young people, who have borne the consequences of their bad behaviour, why they felt that it was necessary.
The Minister will know that many more people in our constituencies are now looking at the work he is doing to repair the UK-EU relationship, and seeking some Christmas cheer. For all the businesses still facing piles of paperwork and mountains of red tape, can he play Santa a little bit more and tell us what 2026 might bring in resetting the relationship and getting Britain back on track with its neighbours?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I pay a warm tribute to my hon. Friend for the campaigning work that she does on this issue. At the next UK-EU summit in 2026, we will seek to complete the negotiations on a food and drink agreement, which would mean less red tape and less cost for businesses; on the linkage of our emissions trading system, so that we do not have our businesses levied with carbon taxes; and on the youth experience scheme, so that we have even more opportunities for our young people. That will be a positive 2026.
G20 and Ukraine
Stella Creasy Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry but that is just not within the rules of the House. I do not expect this from somebody who is so well established here. The right hon. Gentleman may by all means raise a point of order straight after the statement if it relates to the topic, but the rules of the House come first. I call Stella Creasy.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I think we all understand that this is a breaking situation. In such an uncertain world, we know that allyship is integral to our security. The post-war generation created the NHS and NATO because they understood the power of collective solidarity. I am pleased to hear the Prime Minister talk about the importance of the Security Action for Europe negotiations, because our work with Europe is not about replacing our relationships with NATO but about strengthening them. Did he raise the SAFE negotiations with the President of the European Commission? This situation reminds us that we must get the European defence industry into a shape in which it can address the threats that we face from Russia. The UK must be part of those conversations.
The Prime Minister
I can assure my hon. Friend that negotiations are going on in the ordinary way in relation to SAFE and a number of other issues.
I am endeavouring the get the best information I can in relation to what is developing, and I will weave it into an answer if I get anything that will help the House.
Middle East
Stella Creasy Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Prime Minister
There is no other interpretation. I am pleased that the right hon. Member raises, and gives me the opportunity to agree with him on, that important point. On his first point about decommissioning, of course that will be difficult, but it is vital. It was difficult in Northern Ireland in relation to the IRA, but it was vital. It is why we have said that we stand ready, based on our experience in Northern Ireland, to help with the decommissioning process. I will not pretend that it is easy, but it is extremely important.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I suspect that one reason our optimism is cautious is that many of us are acutely aware that the damage that has been done will last a generation—on all sides of the conflict. For some, the damage can never be repaired. I thought yesterday of my constituent Sharone Lifschitz, whose father, Oded, was brutally murdered by Hamas. He had spent his life driving ambulances across the border for Gazan children because he wanted a two-state solution.
The Prime Minister spoke of the evacuations. I am very proud to have worked with Project Pure Hope, which was the first organisation to get children out of Gaza and to the United Kingdom for medical treatment. Now we have a scheme, but many more people continue to need assistance—the sort that medical teams in the United Kingdom can provide. Will he update us on the commitment to that scheme, how long it will be, and how we in this House can make that Oded’s legacy?
The Prime Minister
We are evacuating and have plans to continue doing so. I am happy to update the House—either myself or through other Ministers—on what we are doing and how we are doing it.
EU-UK Summit
Stella Creasy Excerpts(11 months, 1 week ago)
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Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the EU-UK summit.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey, for a debate on such an important issue. Let me start with what I believe is a truism in British politics: we can learn a lot from Disney and the films of our childhood. In this debate, the words of Elsa from “Frozen” are particularly apposite for those people who are still obsessed with the debates of 2016 and 2019: it is time to let it go. I suspect that many Members across the House would agree with that, because 2016 was a long time ago, and time has moved on.
It was 2016 when President Trump was elected for the first time. It was the year that, sadly, David Bowie passed away. It really is that long ago. Russia was involved in a war in the Donbas, but no further. TikTok did not even exist—that was not until 2019, which is also now a very long time ago and was when we finally actually left the European Union with the deal struck under the trade and co-operation agreement. It was also, of course, the year of “Frozen II” and that famous song “Into the Unknown”, and it was the year that Greggs gave us a vegan sausage roll, Notre-Dame burned down, Boris Johnson was elected as Prime Minister and “Game of Thrones” finally finished—not the Conservative leadership challenges, but the television series.
My point is that so much has happened in our history since the tired old debates were first rehearsed. Let us not do that today, because we have left the European Union. I stand here as chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, seeking not to prosecute an argument to rejoin but to look at the summit and the deal that was struck on Monday. Frankly, I do not believe this country has time to engage in the discussion around rejoining. We need a salvage operation, and I see Monday’s deal as the start of that operation to salvage a future following the impact of Brexit.
Even if we disagree on that salvage operation, I hope we can convince the Minister that there needs to be more scrutiny of our relationship with Europe. We might disagree about the direction of travel, but we are bound together by a recognition that taking back control means that this place needs to have discussions about the deals and the opportunities and what they mean for our constituents. Perhaps, like Banquo’s ghost, the former Member for Stone still lives with us; but actually, we can all show today that were we to have European scrutiny formats in the House, it would be a positive and constructive contribution to the deal-making process.
That is what is on offer today: the opportunity to take us forward, not back. We can now see the impact of the Brexit deal on our constituents. Our constituents need us to ask questions about what will happen next—about the 1.8 million jobs that we are missing as a result of the deal that was struck, the stagnation in the growth of exports and the 16,000 businesses that gave up trading as a direct result of the “benefit” of Brexit, which was paperwork.
The EU is our biggest trading partner: it accounts for 41% of our exports and 51% of our imports. In comparison, the US accounts for just 22% of our exports and 13% of our imports. Clearly, this is a fundamental relationship for the future of British business and British jobs. The summit on Monday was an opportunity not just to look at the trade and co-operation agreement—what was written into the very details of the deal, five years on—but to do something that the public want. Two thirds of the public tell us that Brexit has been detrimental to the cost of living, 65% say it has had a negative impact on our economy, 64% think it has been bad for British business, and 60% think that a closer relationship with Europe is in our interests.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Highgate) (Lab)
My hon. Friend will know my views on Brexit—I represent a constituency in which 87% of people voted to remain and I represent 22,000 EU nationals, who are part of the fabric of our community—but I want to ask her about young people, who she will probably mention at some point. The statistics show that there has been a 30% drop in the number of schoolchildren going to Europe on school trips, and that disadvantaged areas have been hit the hardest—
Tulip Siddiq
The UK is not part of the list of travellers scheme, which is why it is so hard for schoolchildren to go on trips. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should have better access to Europe, like we had when we were growing up?
Ms Creasy
As somebody who still remembers a powerful school trip to Ypres to look at the first world war sites, I know that the dramatic decline in school trips to Europe is harming our children’s education. I am sure the Minister will want to refer to that.
The public are living in the world we are in now, which is why they want us to look at the deal. They recognise that Europe now has the highest employment rate since 2005, whereas elsewhere the second-term Trump Administration have brought tariffs and turmoil, just 121 days in; Putin has now invaded Ukraine itself; there is a horrific conflict in the middle east; and China and Iran now figure in our national security concerns, too. And as ever, technology overruns us all. There are now 159 million TikTok users in Europe, and it is predicted that within three years some 15% of our day-to-day decisions will be made by artificial intelligence. All of us will probably become redundant; I shall leave it to Conservative Members to decide whether that is a good or bad thing. Everybody else has moved on. It is time that we in this House do, too.
In that spirit, let me fail to heed my own words and turn to perhaps one of the most damaging aspects of the Brexit debate. I welcome the Minister’s hard work and the deal that has been struck as a testament to the ambitions of the previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and the concept of cakeism. It is truly incredible to see that, far from it being impossible to be pro cake and pro eating it, the new bespoke deal delivers for the UK in many ways that many people had suggested were not possible.
I put on the record my support for the formal security and defence partnership, with the promise of exploring participation in a new defence fund while retaining our red line about not participating in the single market. I will, of course, take an intervention from any Conservative Member who wishes to apologise for the deliberate refusal of the previous Government to put anything about foreign policy or defence co-operation into the previous deal—a decision that has left us uniquely exposed.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
As the Government say, NATO is the cornerstone of our defence, and that is how we co-operate with our European partners on defence. EU defence is an add-on that has been in the minds and the ether of the EU since the Maastricht treaty, but it has never come to anything substantial.
Ms Creasy
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will want to tell that to his constituents. Of course NATO is vital, but we are dealing with a new world. They see the aggression of President Putin and the need to stand up to address the situation in Gaza. They see the leadership being shown by our European colleagues and they wish us to be not playground generals, but grown-ups. That is exactly what the defence deal will mean.
I also welcome the proposals for co-operation on foreign aid, because that is crucial not only to tackling poverty around the world but to preventing conflict. Conflict is driving many to flee persecution, proving how aid is often our best defence against the small boats, rather than the bluster of some Conservative Members.
There has been a resolution to the risk of divergency in our carbon emissions trading schemes, which would have been a death knell for the British steel industry. Energy UK estimates that will mean around £800 million per year of payments going to our Treasury rather than to the EU. It is worth remembering that 75% of our steel exports, worth £3 billion, go to the European Union. Frankly, if we want to save British Steel, we need to save its market, which is what the resolution will do.
The talks will allow us to use e-gates at the borders. Queuing might be a national pastime, but it is not a national sport that any of us enjoy. There will be co-operation with Europol and data sharing on fingerprints, DNA and criminal records. Again, I suspect that in future years many of us will realise how criminal it was that that was not part of the original deal, which made it easier for the people who wish to do harm to our constituents to evade justice by crossing the border.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Sir John Hayes
Someone once said that the general rule in politics is never to apologise and never to explain, and I am certainly not going to break that rule now. The truth is that the hon. Lady is arguing for co-operation, and we all affirm that. Britain has co-operated with its neighbours, and with countries more widely, over the whole of our history. We began co-operating with Portugal under Edward III, as the Minister will no doubt confirm and speak about in some detail. It is not about co-operation; it is about governance. There is a fundamental difference between collaboration and co-operation, and government from abroad.
Ms Creasy
I am always pleased to see the right hon. Gentleman admit that he is in fact a rule taker, not a rule maker. It is noticeable that the co-operation that his Government did not pursue meant that we did not have access to EU databases such as Eurodac and the Schengen information system, which are critical to stopping cross-border crime and addressing illegal migration. The right hon. Gentleman talks about the fact that we have always co-operated; it was a conscious decision by the previous Government not to do so, and it is a conscious decision by this Government to address that to help to make us safer. Time and again, his Government rejected important security measures just because they had the word “Europe” in the title. This Government will not make that mistake.
All that is before we even get to the basics that I believe most of our constituents will be interested in, including the sanitary and phytosanitary deal, which will see the removal of the vast majority of the paperwork and checks that were killing British food manufacturing and farmers, as well as causing inflation to costs here. Just the removal of export health certificates will save businesses up to £200 per consignment—a cost that was being passed on to our constituents. Again, I offer any Member who wants to defend the previous deal the opportunity to apologise to all those who work in logistics and have had to deal with Sevington, and the queues, delays and confusion about getting goods across the border.
I hope that the Minister will confirm that along with removal of the export health certificates, we are looking again at how we can remove the border operating model that the last Government brought in, which put further charges on top of the export health certificates and meant more delays in getting seeds to British farmers and flowers to market for our British businesses. All our constituents will welcome an SPS deal, because it is a way to tackle the extra £6.5 billion that we have had to spend on food and drink as a result of the charges, on top of other costs, because of Brexit.
Of course, we must talk about fish, because Britain’s fishing industry has indeed been battered by Brexit. Boris Johnson promised both prodigious amounts of fish to be caught and EU vessels out of our waters. He delivered neither—fishcakes, indeed. The new deal will start to address the damage done to our fishing industries. It is an honest and fair deal to secure no further loss of access and the restoration of a market for fish. The SPS deal will cut the Brexit red tape that has caused a 29% drop in fish exports to the EU since 2019. I am sure that Members read the words of Ian Perkes, a fish merchant from Brixham, who said that he had a catch worth £80,000 written off because of a dispute over the temperature it had been stored at, and another consignment rejected because the Latin name for Dover sole was spelled wrong.
The deal done by the previous Government would have expired next year. If we want the investment that the industry desperately needs, the stability of terms matters. With 80% of our catch exported—70% of that to the EU—the new deal offers a chance for that stable future for our fishing communities. It is the same with energy. The deal done by the previous Government would have expired next year. As the Prime Minister pointed out, we have been aligning in practice since we left the EU; we just have not had any say in what happens. We have aligned because the standards are high, and because asking businesses to follow two different sets of rules is a recipe for more regulation, not less. Anybody who doubts that needs to look at the record of the last Government.
I stand here as a red against red tape, welcoming the ruthlessness with which the Government have acted. The previous Government tried to introduce the UK charter mark, which they then admitted would cost British business billions of pounds to implement. They then promptly stated that if businesses had met EU standards, they had met British ones too. What a mess! The Product Regulation and Metrology Bill is currently going through Parliament, and I am sure that the Minister will want to update us about what the deal will mean for the Bill and its terms of trade.
Conservative Members will decry the idea that we are rule takers. We were under them, but under this deal we will be consulted. We will have to abide by a dispute resolution system. Conservative Members act as if that is some new phenomenon—something we have never had as part of any other trade deal or, indeed, as part of their trade deal with the European Union. Thankfully, we can look to a non-mythical creature—but one that is certainly at risk—the puffin, to see what the reality might be, because last year the EU took the UK and Holyrood to court for banning sand eel fishing in the North sea and Scottish waters, as they wanted to protect that vital food source for the puffin. That is a noble aim that we can all get behind. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague had to decide whether the ban was a reasonable measure and, as a result, rule on our ability to determine fishing in our own seas. The courts upheld that decision to protect puffins and did so on the basis of the European Court of Justice—a process that the previous Government had signed up to already and that is part of the future negotiating deal.
Conservative Members talk of sovereignty as if it is some lump of plasticine that we can hand out, but the truth is that the new deal upholds our ability to make our case and to work with our neighbours within a reasonable framework. It is five years since we left, and we are still talking about and affected by the decisions that Europe makes. We are just not in the room where they are being made.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
One of the things still not agreed is getting back into the Erasmus scheme. The Turing scheme, which was proposed instead, cut out youth groups, which has had a big effect in my constituency and around the country. Does my hon. Friend have any further information —I hope the Minister is listening—about the pace at which we might get back into the Erasmus scheme?
Ms Creasy
That is a fair and central question. I was coming to the point that we must ensure that our young people do not bear the brunt of the obsession with isolation at the expense of influence. That is why it is right to negotiate a youth mobility scheme and to look at Erasmus. I urge the Government to ensure that the scheme prioritises apprenticeships and training opportunities, so that future generations can benefit in the way that many previous ones did by taking a job in Spain or Germany, as well as going there to study.
Ultimately, this is just the start of the process—I am very aware that “Frozen III” is due to come to cinemas soon. There will be much more detail to work out, and I am sure that the Minister will give us a timeline for when decisions will be made and when we will get that detail.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I want to correct the hon. Lady on a matter of fact. The dispute about sand eel fishing was resolved, under the trade and co-operation agreement, by a bilateral arbitration panel. It had nothing to do with the European Court of Justice. It is a normal trading agreement. There was no involvement of the Court of Justice of the European Union. [Interruption.]
Sir Bernard Jenkin
Would the hon. Lady like to correct the record, because what she said was incorrect? We can prove it afterwards, and she will have to correct the record afterwards if that is the case.
Ms Creasy
I refer to the point about the protection of The Hague and where The Hague takes its judgments from. Ultimately, the decisions were made in the Court of Arbitration. It relies on those rulings. That is part of the process. I suspect the fact that the Member has decried that speaks to the need for us all to have more time to scrutinise and do justice to this issue. I suspect that when he makes his speech, he will continue to make the argument that we do not want to work with the European Court of Justice. The truth is that his Government brought in mechanisms that used the European Court of Justice as part of their framework—[Interruption.]
Esther McVey (in the Chair)
Order. We must have just one person speaking at a time.
Ms Creasy
As the Minister says, the Windsor framework does as well. It shows where and how it works, and I think our constituents deserve the honesty of how the processes actually work and what the rulings are, rather than the fantasy. The puffins are very real; the puffery is not.
Finally, I have some questions I wish the Minister to address in his summing-up, because there are questions arising from the summit and the deal that has been struck. He will be aware that many of us have been championing membership of the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention, because that is also about the rules of origin paperwork, which has been so harmful to our supply chains. Could he give us an update on whether there is an opportunity for us to be part of that mechanism again, to help British businesses with all that paperwork?
We also need to understand whether any progress has been made on the mutual recognition of conformity assessments and qualifications. We know the latter is in there, but the agreement matters for both. Finally, can he say a bit more about what will happen to our financial services, which have not been mentioned yet but are the primary driver of growth in our economy?
The new deal will help our constituents finally clear the fog of Brexit: the excessive paperwork, the partnerships that have been damaged and the personal opportunities lost. I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to use these summits to keep working on our relationship with our neighbours. It is an honest recognition that we can fight many things in life, but geography is not one of them. Our constituents have paid the price of a bad deal, as have many of us—some Opposition Members literally bankrolled the Brexit campaign. It is no wonder the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is not with us today; if I were him, I would not want to be here to admit what a botched deal has been done.
Dame Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend has helpfully laid out a list of issues for the Minister. I would add: what do we do about touring musicians? It has had a really big impact that people are unable to tour in Europe because of the cost of cabotage, visas and so on, as well as the time delays. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should be pushing that issue as well?
Ms Creasy
I do. We may be making Elton John unhappy in the main Chamber, but I hope that in this Chamber the Minister can make him very happy with progress on touring musicians. We welcome the chance to work across the House to fix this through proper scrutiny, debate and discussion. The world is a very uncertain place right now, and our constituents will consider the new deal to offer hope for their future. As much as there is chaos and confusion, we can be crystal clear that both cake and change are possible.
Esther McVey (in the Chair)
I remind Members that they should bob if they want to be called to speak, and that I will call the Front-Bench spokespeople just before 4 pm to allow Stella Creasy time to make a wind-up speech.
Richard Tice
And dependants, because the scheme is still open-ended. We do not know the age or number of people involved in the youth experience scheme, and we have no idea about its duration. I am hoping that I will still qualify at the age of 60.
Ms Creasy
I, too, share a burning desire to still be considered young—alas, I have to face the brutal reality. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has similar concerns about the 13 other youth mobility schemes that we have with countries around the world. Does he fear the Australians, the New Zealanders, the Canadians, the Japanese and the Uruguayans who come on such schemes in the same way that he fears the Europeans? Or is it that he thinks the Europeans are younger and fitter than him?
Richard Tice
Well, the Europeans may well be younger and fitter than me, but the truth is that proximity makes a big difference to the concerns of my constituents. Boston has received a significant quantity of net immigration from eastern Europe, but it has not seen any Australians. There is a proximity issue, but surely it must be right that if the Government are going to agree a deal, they should agree the terms of the deal. We do not know the numbers, the cap or, really, the duration of the scheme—we know absolutely nothing. We are completely at the mercy of the European Union.
I invite any hon. Member to spend a day with me in sunny Skegness and knock on a thousand doors. I promise them that not a single person who answers the door will say, “I want a youth experience scheme for Johnny or Judy.”
Richard Tice
The renewable energy industry is receiving subsidies of tens of billions of pounds, which are added to all our household bills. The wholesale cost of energy is between 30% and 35% of the total cost of energy, so all the rest is subsidies, policy costs, transmission costs and profit. If we scrap net stupid zero, we drive down prices. Instead, the deal will handcuff us for evermore to higher bills; it will not reduce bills in any way.
Ms Creasy
As a proud member of the Community trade union, and on behalf of all the other trade unions who represent those who work in the steel industry, including many in the Scunthorpe steelworks, I want to ask the hon. Gentleman what he will say to them when they are campaigning for the deal. They recognise that, as I said, 75% of our steel exports go to the EU. If he cuts off their access to the EU market by making them pay an additional subsidy, he will kill the British steel industry. Does he have any words of comfort for them about where their jobs will go?
Richard Tice
The hon. Lady may have forgotten that it was thanks to our intervention that British Steel and the blast furnaces have been saved. We stood there six years ago, and I said, “Don’t sell British Steel to the Chinese,” but the Conservative Government ignored our advice. British Steel has consistently said to me over the last six years that the cost of energy drives up the price of steel. That is why the quantity of steel that we have produced in this country in the last decade has plummeted—because of our high energy costs due to the ever increasing cost of renewable energy.
The key problem is the cost of energy, which has driven down the production of steel by about half in the last decade. That is why British Steel is so cross about the cost of energy. We have an opportunity to manufacture and sell more steel internally, in the UK, but the tragedy is that the Ministry of Defence, for example, does not use either of our key steel producers—Tata Steel or British Steel—as a critical supplier, which it should do. Why does it not do that? Because those producers are uncompetitive. Why? Because of the cost of energy in our domestic market. The fifth surrender is the EU emissions trading scheme, which will be a serious handicap and handcuff over the next few years.
The sixth surrender is on the use of passport e-gates. I know it caused some interest, but the reality is that, once again, nothing has been agreed. It is supposedly the great benefit, yet it turns out that it is not agreed. We have no idea when it might commence; it might be this year or next year. It also turns out that no country is obligated to sign up to our supposed access through the e-gates—no, it will be a voluntary process. Actually, we have not agreed the benefit that we have all been told is the deal’s greatest opportunity.
In other words, once again, little has been agreed and everything has been conceded. Interestingly, even before the deal, nations such as Portugal already allowed us through e-gates. We already have the opportunity that is supposedly the great benefit of this deal, so why do the deal in the first place?
The deal has been done, despite all of these great surrenders, because we have a Prime Minister who did not want us to leave the EU. More than that, he did not want to trust democracy; he wanted to do it again by having a second referendum. One week, he says that he wants freedom of movement and more immigration, and the next week, he says he wants less immigration. It is hard to keep up.
Martin Vickers (in the Chair)
Well, none of us would want to deny ourselves the chance to listen to Sir John. Back to you.
Sir John Hayes
I wondered whether the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) was going to finish my speech for me, Mr Vickers, but I am not sure it would have been quite in the same vein as that in which I intend to continue.
We have talked a bit about the youth mobility scheme, or the youth movement scheme or the youth experience scheme—call it what you will. Of course, it is true that some young people want to go abroad, but many more young people from abroad will want to come here, and we spoke a little before you came, Mr Vickers, about the consequences of that.
Things have changed since we left the European Union. The principal change internationally has been the greater need for national economic resilience, epitomised in the covid pandemic and then the European war in Ukraine that followed. Never has it been clearer that Britain needs to become increasingly resilient, and that means protecting our industries to some degree. It certainly means manufacturing more of what we need and growing more of the food that we consume in this country. Shortening supply lines will have many benefits, environmental and other but, fundamentally, it is about taking a national view of our economic interests.
Of course Britain co-operates and collaborates with others; but, as I said to the hon. Member for Walthamstow when she opened the debate, there is a world of difference between co-operation and governance. In a sense, that has permeated considerations of this subject since we started them back in the late 1950s. For a long time, many of those who favoured European governance pretended that it was a matter of logistics rather than principles, of details rather than essentials and, as we heard again in this debate, of co-operation rather than governance. Fundamentally, however, it is about the difference between supranational Government and collaborative measures—treaties and so on—between sovereign nations. That is at the heart of this debate.
It is unfortunate that when we joined the European Union—as you will remember, Mr Vickers, because you were a campaigner against it even in those distant days—it was labelled the Common Market. There was no sense there that we would be giving up our sovereignty—no sense that it would have any effect on our political structure or system of Government. It was just a trading association.
How things have changed. I know the hon. Member for Walthamstow welcomes that change, because she fought the Brexit referendum result in an honourable, but none the less stubborn way, if I might say so. I wonder whether she is as stubborn now.
Ms Creasy
It is always flattering when people talk about imitation. The right hon. Gentleman’s argument was about the difference between co-operation and governance. What is it about Europol and our ability to share information and work together to tackle crime and hold to account those who harm our constituents that he finds distasteful enough that to support not working with Europol? His Government chose, on his argument, not to work with Europol. I believe that that has damaged our ability to tackle crime, and this summit will address that. What was so distasteful about that body that he could not co-operate with it?
Sir John Hayes
I say to the hon. Lady—not in a way that is patronising or pompous at all—that I can speak with a bit more authority about that than she can, because I am a former security Minister, currently a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, and I was once responsible for countering serious organised crime in Government, so I came across a lot of the need to co-operate and share data.
The hon. Lady will remember that we were never part of the Schengen arrangement, although we did have access to the Schengen database. We were never part of European governance over security, although we did share information with European partners. She will also know that the key security relationship for us is the Five Eyes relationship with countries beyond the European Union—America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. That is the core security partnership but, of course, we co-operate with other countries across the globe. To be frank, that is not really about governance, is it? That is about exactly the kind of collaboration that, as I described, has always been part of the way that this country has dealt with its affairs internationally. [Interruption.] I am not going to take another intervention because I know that even you, Mr Vickers, are beginning to tire—even of me.
I will therefore move rapidly to my concluding remarks, which concern this issue of trade and regulation. It is undoubtedly true that, in my constituency—I think a Member who is no longer in their place asked me to offer a balanced view of this—exporters in the horticultural sector will benefit from smoother transitions at ports. However, it is also true that there is a risk that that will encourage us to import more food at a time when we need to export less. We need to grow, make and consume more of our own food. Yesterday I was at a meeting with the all-party parliamentary group on the UK fresh produce network, which I chair, and a major haulier, farmer and grower said that he feared that that was the problem with this deal. I meet farmers, growers and hauliers in my constituency every single week, such is my diligence, and they are most concerned about the possible impact of that additional ability of the Europeans to flood our markets with foreign food.
I will end with this: Joe Chamberlain also said that we should
“carry on even to distant ages the glorious traditions of the British flag.”
In the end, this is about just that. It is about how one sees the nationhood, and how one regards the national interest. There are those on the left—although I do not say that they are in this Chamber—who are affected by doubt about nationhood, and some even afflicted by guilt about our past who do not see the national interest in the way I do. I do not think that that includes the Minister, by the way, as we will no doubt hear when he speaks. But in the end, we do have to come to the logical conclusion of Brexit and all that has happened since: the national interest ought to be the supreme consideration of any Government.
Sam Rushworth
As has been said already, there is increased access for British goods into the European markets. I will come on to some others.
Ms Creasy
There needs to be some cold hard reality about this situation. The previous Government seemed to be suggesting some kind of cod war where our Navy might have been deployed to maintain the idea that nobody else could fish. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the benefits of the deal that has been struck now is around removing the barriers to selling the fish that we catch? The reason why there has been such a fall—of a third in the exports of fish from the United Kingdom—is the market that there is for our fishery. Our fishing communities face many challenges, not least the myths of the last Government, and we need to give them a market. This deal will do that.
Sam Rushworth
That is 100% correct. I do not think that there is any Member in this place who has not met businesses in their constituency that previously exported to Europe and heard the tales of woe as a result of the deal that the previous Government negotiated. That is why so many people are lining up to say that the deal represents a good deal for them. When my constituents voted for Brexit, they voted for two things: to be better off and to control immigration. I do not like the word “betrayal”, which has been bandied around in this debate, but in the last five years we have seen a betrayal of the promise that was made to them.
In 2010—the year that the Conservatives took office—annual asylum claims were just 18,000; barely anybody arrived in the UK by a small boat. That remained relatively constant up until Brexit—so, what happened? First, because they told people that co-operation with our friends in Europe was the problem, they pulled Britain out of the Dublin agreement, meaning that we could no longer return people to the first country where they claimed asylum. Do not take my word for it; let us hear what the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), was found to have said in a recording leaked this week:
“Because we’re out of the European Union now, we are out of the Dublin III regulations, and so we can’t any longer rely on sending people back to the place where they first claimed asylum. When we did check it out, just before we exited the EU transitional arrangements…we did run some checks and found that about half the people crossing the Channel had claimed asylum previously elsewhere in Europe…and therefore could have been returned.”
Sam Rushworth
I am sure the Minister will answer that point in his summing up, but it is my understanding that we do not have access to facial recognition technology, which is really important to help us to better police our borders. This is the simple reality: the Brexit that we were promised did not do the things that people promised it would do. That is why we need a reset in relations.
Ms Creasy
I wonder what the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) might say to apologise to my constituent, who has now been waiting, I believe, for over 12 years for justice to be done in the case of her son’s murder in Greece, and for those responsible to be extradited. The abolition of the European arrest warrant under Brexit has made that harder, which is a real example of the damage done by the previous Government’s approach to crime and security.
Sam Rushworth
It is so obvious that improved co-operation with all the countries just 20 miles off our shore can benefit our security and trade. That is what the reset is seeking to do. It is not dragging us back into Europe—I think that is nonsense, and I am not hearing any credible person say that.
The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) says that he holidays in north Norfolk, and I will be joining him there this summer—[Interruption.] Not personally, I hasten to add; I mean that my family will be there this summer too.
Mike Wood
My right hon. Friend is clearly right, and the national interest cannot be served by a dynamic alignment that effectively requires us to automatically take on other people’s rules. On Tuesday, the Prime Minister either could not or would not tell us what measures would be open to the EU in the event that Parliament chose not to adopt a new EU law under paragraph 27 of the common understanding. Can the Minister do better? Would remedial action be restricted to suspending parts of this agreement, or could it result in a broader trade dispute?
Labour fought Brexit at every turn over the last nine years. The Prime Minister backed a second referendum; he stood on platforms calling for us to stay in the EU, and demanded we entered into a customs union that would have made the trade deals reached since Brexit impossible. Now he says that he wants to make Brexit work, but his version of making Brexit work is about dragging Britain backwards.
This deal is not about fixing Brexit; it is about reversing it and undermining it. Let us be absolutely clear: this deal resubmits the UK to foreign courts, foreign laws and foreign control. We will pay into EU budgets, follow EU rules and even have our food standards determined by Brussels. We will be paying into EU schemes with no say on how those funds are spent, and taking EU laws with no say over what they are—the worst of both worlds. No vote. No veto. No voice. Taxation without representation. The Prime Minister complains—[Interruption.] Sorry, is the hon. Member for Walthamstow trying to intervene?
Ms Creasy
I thank the hon. Member for giving way. We have talked about the puffin case; the previous Government, which fought the puffin case, relied on European law in making their argument, and cited it in their own submissions. It was good enough for the previous Government to look at European law and at questions about proportionality, as they did in their submission. The idea that moving to an independent arbitration system, which is what this summit will do, is somehow surrender is misplaced.
Mike Wood
No, I think the hon. Lady misses the point completely. When we are being taken to an international court by an institution such as the European Union, it is a perfectly sensible and effective legal strategy to cite its own rules as evidence that we have not broken either its rule or the international rule that it is citing.
Now, the Prime Minister complains about us doing exactly what we were elected to do—holding this Government to account and calling out where they are getting things wrong. On this, the Government are getting things wrong, and we will not make any apology for doing our duty, which is to oppose these concessions, to honour the will of voters and to retain our sovereignty. It is time to stand firm for the integrity of our democracy and for the ability of our sovereign Parliament to make decisions in the interests of our great nation.
Ms Creasy
Thank you, Mr Vickers, and Ms McVey for your able chairing of this afternoon’s debate.
I am probably going to show my age and why I am definitely not available for a youth exchange scheme, not by quoting Disney but by making an older reference. Dan Quayle’s words about surrender spring to mind when I hear the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) and other Opposition Members talk about Brexit. He said:
“My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will, never, never surrender to what is right.”
Dan Quayle’s method of surrender is the approach of Reform and the Opposition making.
Today’s debate has shown why we need a salvage and not a rejoin operation, given the impact of Brexit. We now hear Opposition parties opposing any co-operation at all—moving the goalposts. I am old enough and have been in this place long enough to remember when Opposition Members used to push for some kind of Swiss-style deal. They wanted some form of co-operation; now they seem to want no deal at all. They want to ignore the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, which criticised the impact on Brexit deal shellfish markets. They want to ignore not just the supermarkets—a bad form of reference according to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin)—but the British International Freight Association. I the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness to go and speak to the association, which talks about that deal as eliciting “a sigh of relief” regarding the practical changes for its members.
I understand that we are now no longer to go to Spain, France or even Italy on holiday—only Norfolk. Let me reassure the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) that I will be in Norfolk this summer, but I do not want to deny my constituents the ability to travel all because of the right hon. Gentleman’s obsession with isolation. I do not think we will see no French people go to Skegness. I am sure that if they did come, they would get a very warm welcome. I certainly do not think we want the Henry Ford-approach to arbitration, which says, “Our way or no way at all.” This debate has shown the value of a debate on this issue. I hope that the Minister will take back if not the ideas, then the idea that we can talk about these issues in this place once again.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards), my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger), the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake), the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock), the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray), the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) and the Minister.
Danny Kruger
Does the hon. Lady share my regret that the Minister did not recommit the Government to introducing the Scrutiny Committee? Does she agree that we should continue to work to that end?
Ms Creasy
Yes, I do, and I know the Minister knows that. It is healthy for us to have these debates and I hope that we can continue to have them.
As I said, I am concerned and interested to see the future possibility of joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention and tackling the rules of origin paperwork. Mutual conformity will be an issue. I know there are more concerns about security and defence. This is such a big issue with such a potential impact on our future. The deal that the Minister has done this week shows that, because of the benefits it will bring. It is right that this place has that debate so that we can move on from Opposition Members appearing like Prince Hans and wanting to take us back to Weselton, rather than thinking about the future that we could offer to everybody.
I finish by again urging Opposition Members to let it go. “Frozen III” will offer us many new opportunities to revisit Olaf’s story and to see what happens to Anna and Elsa. Of course, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire will know that Anna saves Elsa through love. Let me offer some love, so as not to go back into the castle, but to move forward together, because things really will look good when we are older.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the EU-UK summit.